kelly_chambliss (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kelly_chambliss) wrote2010-08-03 01:04 pm
kelly_chambliss) wrote2010-08-03 01:04 pm
30 Days of HP Meme -- Day 8
Day 1. Discuss how you got into Harry Potter.
Day 2. Your favorite book
Day 3. Least favorite book.
Day 4. Favorite female character.
Day 5. Favorite male character.
Day 6. Least favorite female character.
Day 7. Least favorite male Character.
Day 8. Thoughts on fanfic.
I have so many thoughts on fanfic that I can't corral them into anything coherent. I've spent so much time talking with fandom friends and reading the scholarship on fanfic and on fandom in general (which has just exploded in the last few years, omg) -- anyway, it all makes my brain ache and I can't sort out all my ideas. (I'd love someday to have an on-line discussion of the major fanfic scholarship. I argue with the critics as I read; it would be fun to argue with all of you, too /g/).
But the short version: obviously I adore it. Like many of you, I've always had a tendency to fall in love with fictional characters, to obsess about them; I don't want to let them and their world go once I've read that last page or watched that last frame. I've been writing fanfic since childhood -- I just didn't know that's what I was doing when I made up stories about the Wizard of Oz film and told them to my sister. And when I wrote my own Nancy Drew book (well, started it, anyway).
We all think we're the only ones who do these odd things, but then we find out that it's almost a universal impulse, at least among people who feel the need to tell stories. What is Ulysses anyway, except a long and often infuriating piece of fanfic? We want to rewrite the common narratives, recast them in our own images, give ourselves control over the vagaries of fate and other authors' imaginations. I like that I can make my favorite characters evil in one fic, or kill them off in another, or subject them to misery in a third, but then they can bounce back good as new in the next story, like the Coyote after the Roadrunner leads him off a cliff. (Sure, I could do this with OCs, too, but fanfic lets me be lazy in a good way: I don't have to set the stage, build the initial world; I can just go straight for the action / character / sex.)
I also like that fanfic is subversive in its own way and yet very traditional. I love the communal atmosphere of fandom, the way all our writing shapes each other's, the way we're engaged in a sort of constant creative conversation. Yet I'm also fascinated by how our communities replicate larger social and cultural paradigms: we police each other, we establish boundaries and limits and hierarchies, we create our own hegemonies that then have to be subverted in their own turns. It's all so much more complicated than it seems, and there's so much more interesting work to do in understanding it.
My own fanfic journey started in 1999. I was in the throes of an obsession with Captain Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager when I put "Kathryn Janeway" into an on-line search engine, looking for -- oh, I don't know, anything -- and stumbled onto a Janeway/Chakotay fanfic site. I vividly remember reading my first NC-17 story. I thought, "huh? I can't read this -- it's like peering through my neighbor's bedroom window." I actually closed the browser.
Then I opened it again. Within two months of that fateful day, I had read hundreds of stories, discovered hot kinks I hadn't known existed, and written -- and posted -- smut of my own.
The browser hasn't really been closed since.
Day 9 Favorite Hogwarts Professor.
Day 10 Dead character you want to bring back most.
Day 11 House you would be in.
Day 12 Hogwarts subject you would most like to take.
Day 13 Spell you wish you could work without a wand.
Day 14 Thoughts on fanart (+ A favorite fanart).
Day 15 Favorite movie.
Day 16 Least favorite movie.
Day 17 Books vs. films.
Day 18 A part of the books/movies that makes you cry.
Day 19 Favorite 'ship(s).
Day 20 Your favorite villain.
Day 21 Favorite location.
Day 22 Thoughts on wizard rock.
Day 23 Character you think you are most like.
Day 24 Horcruxes vs. Hallows?
Day 25 Something you wish JKR had written about more.
Day 26 Marauders vs. Snape.
Day 27 The Invisibility Cloak, The Resurrection Stone or The Elder Wand.
Day 28 The Next Generation.
Day 29 How have you participated in the fandom over the years?
Day 30 In general, the effects of Harry Potter on your life.
Day 2. Your favorite book
Day 3. Least favorite book.
Day 4. Favorite female character.
Day 5. Favorite male character.
Day 6. Least favorite female character.
Day 7. Least favorite male Character.
Day 8. Thoughts on fanfic.
I have so many thoughts on fanfic that I can't corral them into anything coherent. I've spent so much time talking with fandom friends and reading the scholarship on fanfic and on fandom in general (which has just exploded in the last few years, omg) -- anyway, it all makes my brain ache and I can't sort out all my ideas. (I'd love someday to have an on-line discussion of the major fanfic scholarship. I argue with the critics as I read; it would be fun to argue with all of you, too /g/).
But the short version: obviously I adore it. Like many of you, I've always had a tendency to fall in love with fictional characters, to obsess about them; I don't want to let them and their world go once I've read that last page or watched that last frame. I've been writing fanfic since childhood -- I just didn't know that's what I was doing when I made up stories about the Wizard of Oz film and told them to my sister. And when I wrote my own Nancy Drew book (well, started it, anyway).
We all think we're the only ones who do these odd things, but then we find out that it's almost a universal impulse, at least among people who feel the need to tell stories. What is Ulysses anyway, except a long and often infuriating piece of fanfic? We want to rewrite the common narratives, recast them in our own images, give ourselves control over the vagaries of fate and other authors' imaginations. I like that I can make my favorite characters evil in one fic, or kill them off in another, or subject them to misery in a third, but then they can bounce back good as new in the next story, like the Coyote after the Roadrunner leads him off a cliff. (Sure, I could do this with OCs, too, but fanfic lets me be lazy in a good way: I don't have to set the stage, build the initial world; I can just go straight for the action / character / sex.)
I also like that fanfic is subversive in its own way and yet very traditional. I love the communal atmosphere of fandom, the way all our writing shapes each other's, the way we're engaged in a sort of constant creative conversation. Yet I'm also fascinated by how our communities replicate larger social and cultural paradigms: we police each other, we establish boundaries and limits and hierarchies, we create our own hegemonies that then have to be subverted in their own turns. It's all so much more complicated than it seems, and there's so much more interesting work to do in understanding it.
My own fanfic journey started in 1999. I was in the throes of an obsession with Captain Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager when I put "Kathryn Janeway" into an on-line search engine, looking for -- oh, I don't know, anything -- and stumbled onto a Janeway/Chakotay fanfic site. I vividly remember reading my first NC-17 story. I thought, "huh? I can't read this -- it's like peering through my neighbor's bedroom window." I actually closed the browser.
Then I opened it again. Within two months of that fateful day, I had read hundreds of stories, discovered hot kinks I hadn't known existed, and written -- and posted -- smut of my own.
The browser hasn't really been closed since.
Day 9 Favorite Hogwarts Professor.
Day 10 Dead character you want to bring back most.
Day 11 House you would be in.
Day 12 Hogwarts subject you would most like to take.
Day 13 Spell you wish you could work without a wand.
Day 14 Thoughts on fanart (+ A favorite fanart).
Day 15 Favorite movie.
Day 16 Least favorite movie.
Day 17 Books vs. films.
Day 18 A part of the books/movies that makes you cry.
Day 19 Favorite 'ship(s).
Day 20 Your favorite villain.
Day 21 Favorite location.
Day 22 Thoughts on wizard rock.
Day 23 Character you think you are most like.
Day 24 Horcruxes vs. Hallows?
Day 25 Something you wish JKR had written about more.
Day 26 Marauders vs. Snape.
Day 27 The Invisibility Cloak, The Resurrection Stone or The Elder Wand.
Day 28 The Next Generation.
Day 29 How have you participated in the fandom over the years?
Day 30 In general, the effects of Harry Potter on your life.